


looking at the present's fucking sad

by orphan_account



Series: modern day AU [1]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Arya-centric, Gen, Hospitals, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, Jon&Arya centric, Pre-Relationship, catelyn critical, literally half of this fic is them
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-05
Updated: 2017-07-05
Packaged: 2018-11-23 03:12:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11394180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: "Don't make me go with them," Arya whispers. "I don't want to go home." Not to the room that's right across the hall from Bran's, not to the cupboards with the mugs that have his signature on the bottoms of them. What if she wakes up, and he's dead? What if she wakes up in a house that he'll never step foot in again?(Or, Arya and Jon always get through things together.)





	looking at the present's fucking sad

**Author's Note:**

> I was miserable when i wrote this so i tried to like .... shove the angst in lol
> 
> I haven't written much for this fandom, nor read many of its works, so I, unfortunately, do not know what is overdone. The goal of this series is to take some of the major events in the Game of Thrones verse (i.e. Bran's falling, Ned's death) and turn them into a Modern AU. Some of these events are more fleshed out then they were in the show, since the family is together, and honestly? I wanted to write a series where the family gets to stick up for each other, since in canon they're all so far apart.
> 
> Though it is Stark-centric, all are from Arya's perspective (as far as I know, since this is the only one I've written and plans change) and they also revolve around Jon and Arya's dynamic. 
> 
> Enough rambling, hope you enjoy!

The hospital waiting room is uncomfortably tranquil. There are so many people in it, nearly half of them the Stark family, and yet it is so quiet that Arya feels as though all of her breaths and noises are heard by everybody around her.

Sansa looks like she's choking back tears, and yet still manages to look so friggin' proper. She even  _cries_ like one of those actresses in the movies. Arya has no idea how that works. Rickon has fallen asleep in Catelyn's lap, so she has stilled any movements in order to keep him from waking. If he does wake up, the little spitfire, he'll start either shouting or crying, and that would just ... make everything hurt more.

Arya, for once, is quiet, too. She's sitting next to Jon, his presence heavy next to her. He'd just gotten his license last month, so even though he lives with Aunt Lyanna, he's there with them. Even though the sun has long since gone down, he's staying and doesn't seem to have any intention of leaving.

Arya's grateful. Without him, she might have tried to fistfight Sansa or somebody for no reason other than she's so scared.

She's so scared. Poor Bran. Poor Bran who liked to climb buildings. He couldn't have just stuck to a treehouse like everybody else, huh?

She'll yell at him for it when he wakes up.

If he wakes up.

Dammit.

Ned, gently, as if his mere movements will change Bran's health status, checks his watch. "Maybe we should think about taking Rickon and Arya home," he says, quietly. "I can call Lyanna, she can bring them home."

"I don't want to go home," Arya protests, a little too loudly. Everyone shushes her. Then, quieter, "I don't want to."

"We don't need to call Aunt Lyanna, Dad, I'll bring them," Robb says, and, out of nothing but convenience, Arya suddenly hates him. What a frickin' pushover, just like the rest of them. She hates all of them.

(No, she doesn't. But Bran is in there, and he might not ever wake up, and that alone is enough to bring out too many feelings, none of them rational.)

"The doctor told us that even if we get an update, we won't be allowed visitation until at least morning," Ned says. "I'll stay here just in case anything goes .... either way, but there's no benefit to being here."

"I'll stay with you," Cat says, quiet. "I'd hate to be here alone."

Arya, feeling this situation go out of her hands, as if it was ever in them to begin with, buries her head into Jon's shoulder. His arm opens up for her, easy, and he presses his lips to her forehead. Tears push at the edges of her eyes, and she can feel herself start to hyperventilate, in those big, raspy breaths that always make her mother scold her for making a scene.

"Don't make me go with them," she whispers. "I don't want to go home." Not to the room that's right across the hall from Bran's, not to the cupboards with the mugs that have his signature on the bottoms of them. What if she wakes up, and he's dead? What if she wakes up in a house that he'll never step foot in again?

A silence comes up from above her, and she feels Jon's weight shift as he turns towards her father. After a moment, he asks, "Wanna come over? My mom wouldn't mind."

Arya moves her head back a little to look up at him, bright gray eyes shining with tears. She wipes at them, not wanting to be the first one to be unsuccessful in holding them back. "Yeah."

Catelyn, usually so willing to separate the two of them, (" _she needs to be hanging out with girls! People will start getting the_ wrong idea  _about her!"_ ) is quiet. With just a nod, her permission is given.

They leave a few minutes after the rest of her siblings do. Arya hates to admit it, but she's tired, and those chairs hadn't been comfy. Of course, she'd sit in them all day if it meant she could talk to Bran, but if they really weren't gonna see him until morning anyway...

Jon drives a Jeep Cherokee, light gray in color and completely spotless on the inside. She wonders, sometimes, how he goes without ever leaving anything in there. Or maybe he does, and his mom just cleans it all up. That seems like something Lyanna would do, just to annoy Jon.

She wishes she had a mom like that, one who accepted her for  _her,_ not trying to get her to hang out with girls and give up soccer. Arya  _loves_ soccer, and her mom had almost made her give it up because she kept trekking dirt in the house. It had taken talks from everyone else in the family, even  _Sansa,_ to talk her out of it.

She loves her mother, of course she does. She just wonders, albeit with guilt, how much different everything would be if it were her in that hospital room, the least-favorite.

-

from: jon

arya's staying over. i was thinking basement sleepover  
i'm sorry but i'm not asking <3 <3 <3 <3 <3

from: mama bear

That's OK. I understand.  
Ask her if she wants anything to eat. Poor thing's probably starving.

-

They order ice cream at Friendly's. It's too late for any restaurant with actual nutritional foods to be open, and Arya would probably throw up if she ate anything substantial anyway. The man at the register takes one look at her and gives her a small smile - she must look  _awful,_ with red eyes and tangled hair. But perhaps that's not too much different from her usual. She gets the sugariest sundae she can get, because maybe sugar after a bad day isn't such a bad thing.

"I swear that you get the most expensive things when I'm paying," Jon teases, ruffling her hair.

"I'll repay the favor someday," she tells him.

They can't see much of anything when they walk into Jon's house, so he has to pull up the flashlight feature on his phone. Arya watches, quiet, as he fumbles with his keys in one hand and holds his rocky road ice cream in the other. She wants to offer to help, but for some reason, all she does is cling to her cup of ice cream. The door opens the way that all aged doors do, ungracefully and with a croak. 

She follows him through the house, something akin to a lost puppy. She knows every corner of this house, as it's been her second home all these years, but it seems so different in the dark. There's a note on the dining table,  _goodnight Jon + Arya <3 Love you both_, presumably from Lyanna.

A pang of something shoots through her heart. She's not sure what it is, but it's nothing good.

The basement is ... it's Arya's favorite place in the whole world. It's not a finished basement, so the walls are concrete and the floors are, too. There are giant poles throughout, big things that keep the basement from ever looking pretty, if Lyanna and Rhaegar ever want to fix it up. However, Jon has sectioned off a quarter of the room for, ew, Arya hates the word he uses, _mancave_ purposes. There's a flatscreen on the wall, a beat-up couch Jon had lugged from a yard sale, tapestries on the walls and hanging off the poles to hide the ugliness of the rest of the basement, and Christmas lights due to the lack of lighting. It's comfy and so completely _Jon._

They set up the pull-out couch and cover it with every blanket in the basement that they could find. Arya has a favorite, one that is bright orange, completely ugly, but as soft as any blanket can be. Half of the reason that she likes it so much is because it's Jon's favorite, too. (Maybe not anymore, though, since whenever she's over, he always lets her have it.) It smells like pine trees and toothpaste and she loves it.

They eat ice cream like that, on the couch and watching Food Network. Arya's not really paying attention to the television, not really paying attention to the spoon that she keeps bringing to her lips, only paying attention to the warm arm around her shoulder. Keeping her safe, just like always.

Jon and Arya sleep like that, empty cups of ice cream on the edges of the couch, Alton Brown joking in the background, and curled together. Sometimes, when you need comfort, you can't turn to your siblings. (Arya learned that at age six, bright-eyed and with skinned knees.  _Arya Horseface._ )

She wakes up alone, but figures that the sounds of bacon sizzling coming from upstairs must be either Jon or his mother, so being alone isn't a bad thing. Finally being able to react to Bran's accident by herself, she balls her hands into fists and presses them against her eyes, so much that when she opens them, for a few dizzying moments, everything is blurry.  _Do not cry, Arya Stark,_ she thinks.  _Do not run away from this._

Arya goes up the wooden steps two at a time, and the basement door opens right into the kitchen. There's Jon, with his bedhead and sleepy smile, flipping pancakes in one pan and bacon in the other. He's been crying, but he wipes it away when he realizes that she's up here with him. God, having someone who would put her first in a time like this ... it's so warm.

"That's a lot of pans," she says, because she doesn't know what else to say. 

"Only two," Jon says. "Come sit on the stool, keep me company till it's done."

Arya knows, in her gut, that he has news of Bran. If it was good, he would have told her by now. But she's so terrified of ruining this moment, with her favorite cousin and her favorite house, that she decides to wait. There's anxiety eating at her gut, but does she want to know? Does she want to know what's happened to Bran?

Then, she can't take it anymore. She waits until he eats his last bit of pancake and then - " _What did your mom say? Is he okay? Is he alive?"_

Jon smiles at her, and tears flood back to his eyes. "He's alive. But-"

"But  _what_?"

"Paralyzed. He-he'll never walk again, Arya."

For a second, it doesn't set in. But all of a sudden, Arya has a rock in her stomach, weighing her down, and she's crying. He's next to her, then, and his breath smells like maple syrup. Kneeling onto the ground next to her chair, she hugs him and sobs.

"It's okay," he says. "He's alive, Arya. He's going to keep being alive."  _But he'll never climb again. He loved climbing._ He must read her mind, or something, because he whispers, "I know, I know..."

She tries to talk, but she can't, because everything hurts so  _bad._ She just cries in his arms for what seems like hours but must have only been twenty minutes, feeling his hand in her hair and listening to reassuring words.

"It'll be okay," he swears. "I'm here. I'm here."

-

(They visit Bran. Arya gives him a KitKat and a punch on the shoulder. Catelyn scolds her, but it must be the first time since he's woken that anyone's not treated him like glass, because he grins.)


End file.
